Monday, December 28, 2015

The 12 Games of Christmas Continue (2015 Edition)

Although I have been off work since last Wednesday, I have been lethargic with respect to wargames. I have no updates on that front. However, the 12 Games of Christmas has continued. Here are the games we played since my last update:

Carcassonne
We were in the mood for something quick on Wednesday so we pulled out Carcassonne.

The final boardWe have already counted pieces

Here is the final tally. I'm blue and my wife is yellow. It looks like I'm ahead, except that Elizabeth lapped around twice while I only did it once. That makes her tally = 50 + 50 + 12 vs. my tally = 50 + 46. Too bad for me.

Dead of Winter
Because of family stuff, we did not play on Christmas Eve. However, we decided to try out a new game on Christmas night. It was my gift for Elizabeth - something befitting the season. Yep, a zombie game.

Box cover

Because there were only 2 of us, we played full co-op (with more players there is a possibility that one is a traitor). We succeeded in our mission, although we lost 4 characters along the way. I guess Edward and Jenny will need to work together to re-populate the earth.

Our characters are at the bottom.Only Edward and Jenny remained alive

We also played Saturday with my brothers. Things did not go so well. One of my brothers was the traitor but we kicked the wrong one out of the colony. From then on, luck turned against us and we ultimately succumbed to the zombie apocalypse.

Speaking of Dead of Winter, here are a couple of related YouTube videos:

Castle Panic
My wife was tired but Tommy wanted a game so I pulled out Castle Panic and played solo (I controlled 2 hands). It turned out to be a tense affair. Early in the game, I felt confident, even though a large enemy horde was approaching, I had a bunch of knight and swordsmen cards so I expected to winnow out the attackers. Then successive plagues struck and my forces were depleted. The enemy broke through, destroying a couple of towers.

I rebounded, and managed to whittle the monsters down. At the end I was down to a single tower while the Troll Mage made the final, desperate assault on my castle, It was approaching the castle grounds and there were no walls to stop him. Bur then a swordsman and a hero joined forces to cut down the Troll Mage. The castle was saved!

The tense ending

Ticket to Ride
Tonight, we pulled out the Nordic Countries version, which my wife calls the Christmas version because of the reindeer on the box cover.

My wife was purple; you can see her expansive routes below. I had already completed 5 routes and was close to completing another 2 (worth 10 points each). I only needed to claim a short segment for each of the remaining routes but Elizabeth ended the game. As a result of having incomplete routes, I lost 20 points! She handily defeated me 110 - 76.

And Another Blog
Instead of playing wargames, I've been spending my mornings writing another blog - this one devoted to LARPing. It tells the story of my LARP character from a first person perspective. Although I only have a few posts published so far I have written another half dozen. I am just trying to spread out my posts.